Monthly Archives: June 2015

Agile was designed for truly small teams, so how do you scale it up? How much air can you pump in that balloon? Matthew Heusser writes for CIO.com about the solution known as the Scaled Agile Framework®, otherwise known as SAFe®, designed by Scaled Agile, Inc. Used properly, SAFe just might allow your organization to get agile even when working with over a thousand IT staff. A Bigger World At the top of this framework …

Pawel Brodzinski finds that autonomy and mastery are two major elements in dictating an employee’s motivation to work. Does hierarchy get in the way of these elements? Brodzinski explores this question in a post at his blog. Mastering Motivation Brodzinski fortunately has enough autonomy in his workload that he can devise time to pursue mastery, but when it comes to software development, the two go hand-in-hand. Someone who is given the freedom to build interesting …

Tired of hearing why companies fail to adapt agile? Well, when companies stop botching it, we will stop writing about it. In the meantime, Mike Stuedemann writes for PM Hut with three main reasons why companies drop the ball. This might sound familiar. Three Ways to Stumble Lack of understanding of what agile/scrum means Culture Not “using as directed” Agile and scrum mean different things to different people. The problem is that agile and scrum …

When you think agile and innovative, the first company to come to mind is probably not Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska. Yet the legacy company has shifted from a hierarchy to a peer-to-peer network and is attracting thousands of applicants for every job opening. Rod Collins writes for Huffington Post about how agile is making Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska the place to be. Shielding Against Antiquity What Steve Denning once called “the …

A regular question Johanna Rothman hears among her clients transitioning to agile is how they can assess which people are getting what work done on a project. To Rothman, the answer is that it does not matter. In a post at her blog, she explains why truly everything in agile is a team affair. For Teams, by Teams Newly agile managers want to know how individual employees are doing so that they can most efficiently …

Pair programming is one of those things that, on the face of it, sounds better on paper than in practice. Do you really want to hunch two people over the same screen and make them do it together? Well, as Tim Groven writes for Agile Connection, the answer could actually be a yes. His team conducted an experiment with pair programming that went off much better than any of them expected. It Takes Two For …

You may think that three day-weekends are a rare and welcome treat, but imagine having this so-called luxury on a regular basis. Nope, it’s not a fantasy anymore. A Fast Company article by Stephanie Vozza reveals how some companies have mastered the four-day workweek. More Productivity, Less Work Why would 43% of companies offer a portion of their staff four-day workweeks? The answer is to improve productivity: “Since we implemented flexible workweeks in 2008, all …

Are agile skills really more important than certifications? Sharon Florentine explains for CIO.com that mission-critical IT projects are back, but with an unfortunate twist. According to a recent survey conducted by Innotas, resource supply has not kept pace with project resurgence. That means that roughly 61 percent of all IT professionals do not have the resources or staff to manage IT project demand. Tushar Patel, vice president of marketing at Innotas, says: “Budgets have loosened …

Agile is for everyone, but that’s not to say that agile is easy for everyone. Apprehension over agile adoption can consciously or otherwise cause people to avoid it altogether. David Akka explains why many of the barriers to agile adoption are psychological and habit-driven, and offers tips to overcome the four biggest ones. Agile Barrier #1: Culture Of course no one in a change-averse culture will be able to adopt such a flexible approach. Akka …

The people who really understand agile realize that planning is still a vital part of project success; it is just that planning sometimes comes in a different form. Dovile Miseviciute writes for PM Hut with five levels of scope involved in building an agile plan: Product vision Product road map Release plan Sprint planning Daily standup Magnification Agile planning all begins with the product vision, which is generally handled by management because it establishes the …